Just Good Friends by Rosalind James

him.
    “Going to practice your technique first.”
     “Ummm . . . how do I practice that on the sand?”
    “By listening to me, first thing. I’m the instructor,
remember?”
    “Right. Sorry. So what do I do?”
    “Show me how you lie on the board.” He stretched out on his
own board next to her. “You’re paddling out. Show me how you do that.”
    “Alternate arms,” he corrected her. “Get too tired,
otherwise. And now you’ve paddled to where you see the wave about to break. You
want to stand up on your board. What do you do?”
    “It’s your pop-up technique,” he decided as he watched her.
“There’s your trouble. Let me show you.”
    Under his surprisingly patient tutelage, she practiced
pushing up on her board, then moving her feet underneath her in one smooth
move, crouching low and then standing, arms outstretched.
    “This seems better,” she admitted twenty minutes later. “Much
less awkward. Isn’t it?”
    “You’re doing awesome,” he assured her. “Now we go out in
the water, try it there.”
    She still fell off, the first five times she tried. Over and
over, she paddled her board under his guidance to the point where the wave
would break. Pushed up, used her arms and her core muscles to bring her feet
underneath her. And fell off, landing in the surf with her board trailing behind
her like a leashed dog.
    “Am I ever going to get this?” she sighed after the fifth
failed attempt, hauling herself with difficulty back onto the board to paddle out
beyond the break once again.
    “You are. You’re doing better. Try again.”
    Once more, she paddled. Pushed up. Concentrated as hard as
she could on pulling her feet up under her in one fluid motion. And found
herself crouching on her board.
    “I did it!” she shouted. And promptly fell off again.
    She heard the sound of his laughter behind her as she
climbed back on her board near shore.
    “Good on ya,” he encouraged her as he paddled up. “Next
time, though, instead of telling me, try standing up a bit. Not all the way up.
Stay low. Then you’ll be surfing.”
    For the sixth time that morning, she paddled out, shoulders
already aching, beyond the break. Pushed up. Jumped her feet forward. Crouched.
Rose. And surfed.
    It was just a tiny wave, and it didn’t take long to reach
the shore. But she felt as though she’d just surfed the Breakers in Hawaii. She
dropped back down to her board in triumph and turned to face the ocean, and Koti
paddling up to her with a grin. “I did it! I surfed! I can’t believe it!”
    “Not so tired now, are you?” he teased.
    “No! I want to go do it again!” she laughed.
    She practiced again and again until she was rising more
often than she was falling. Finally, her shoulders announced that they were
done for the day.
    “I’m beat,” she told Koti as she finished yet another run.
“I’m going to go take a shower and change. Why don’t you go ahead and do some
surfing on your own? I know it’s not too exciting for you here, but take your
time.”
    “I’ll do that. Make sure you get rugged up, though. Once you
stop working so hard, and you’re out there in the wind, you’ll get chilled.”
    Back on the beach, she sat on a picnic table and hugged her
arms around her drawn-up knees, pulled her jacket more closely around her, and
enjoyed watching Koti surf. It was hard to begrudge him being so effortlessly
good at it, so ridiculously coordinated, when he had been so gracious with his
time in helping her learn.
    And he was good at it. Watching that lean form, all that
muscular grace crouching and weaving as he sliced through the water, was a pure
pleasure. She might have to buy that poster after all. Or just spend more time
watching him. Because whether he was running with the ball, surfing, or
swimming, he looked so good.
    He stepped out of the water at last, his surfboard under his
arm, and came up the beach to her.
    “Don’t sit on the table,” he said with a frown.
    “What? Why